Keeping You Safe
by hydref05
Summary: Rose wants to know how the Doctor could leave her. Post Girl In The Fireplace. While he did leave Rose and Mickey, they weren't stranded


**Keeping You Safe** by Sian

**Synopsis**: Rose wants to know why the Doctor left her behind.  
**Characters**: Rose and the Doctor (Ten)  
**Episode/Spoilers**: Post Girl In The Fireplace  
**Rating**: G  
**Notes**: My take on the events at the end of the episode, because while he did leave her and Mickey, they weren't stranded.

* * *

Rose had finally finished showing Mickey the finer points of the TARDIS, he'd been particularly impressed with the garden and the games room. She's thrashed him at table football and air hockey, and had left him playing Space Invaders, the original Atari one. 

Now she was looking for the Doctor. She'd known he'd wanted to be alone and that was why she'd spent two hours showing Mickey around. He wasn't in the garden, kitchen or living room. If he wasn't in the console room, then she knew he really didn't want to be disturbed.

As it turned out, he was in the console room. "Hi," she said. "I bought you a tea."

The Doctor gave her his best smile. "Thanks. Mickey enjoy the tour?"

"I think the garden threw him a little. I've left him playing on the games machines. He seemed amused that you should have Space Invaders."

"Did you manage to not get lost?" he teased.

"I haven't got lost for ages," she objected.

"Last week," he reminded her.

"Oh yeah, last week," she agreed. "What you doing?"

"Bit of maintenance."

Rose knew that tone. "You want to be alone?"

He looked apologetic. "Yes."

"Okay. If you want to talk about anything though. I'll be killing Mickey at pool." Rose didn't leave immediately though, she waited just in case he did want to talk.

"How long would you have waited?" he asked.

"Six hours. Another thirty minutes and you'd have been stuck there. I'd have gone," she joked.

He stopped what he was doing and gave her his full attention. "Promise me that you wouldn't wait indefinitely."

"I wouldn't leave you."

"The whole point of Emergency Programme One is so that if something happens to me, you don't get stuck a million miles from home."

"I know, but... do you know how hard it would be to leave you behind?"

"Promise me you wouldn't wait forever," he insisted.

"Doctor..."

"Rose!"

His tone shocked her. She hadn't often heard him sound so serious. "I promise."

"Good." He didn't really believe her, but it was the best he could hope for.

"What happened? Why didn't she come with us?"

"The time window moved again."

"She change her mind?"

The Doctor looked back down at the console. "In a way." He busied himself checking dials and reading the monitor, but he could feel Rose watching him. He stopped and glanced at her. "She died."

"I'm sorry."

The Doctor shrugged, tried to look nonchalant and knew he was failing miserably. "It's what Humans do. It's not like I knew her that long."

"But you liked her."

"She... " he hesitated. How to explain? Reinette had seen inside his mind. She knew things about him that no one else had ever known, things he couldn't tell, not even to Rose. She'd seen how lonely he was, how lonely he'd been all his life. He'd felt her access memories he kept hidden even from himself. "I liked her," he agreed. "But I'm alright."

"Honestly?"

"Yes." _What choice do I have?_ he thought. "Go and play pool."

"Come with me."

"Spend some time with Mickey."

_I'd rather spend time with you_, she wanted to say. She still stood and watched him. _Ask him_, the voice in her head was telling her. "When you broke the mirror, you knew you'd be trapped."

"Yes."

"And yet you did it anyway."

"Rose," the Doctor cautioned. He really didn't want to have this conversation.

"Why?" Rose asked.

"Because the repairbots had already gone and there was no other way for me to get there. You know all this."

"You had to save her."

"Not just Reinette. There were hundreds of people at the French court. I couldn't abandon them."

_But you could abandon me?_ The words were on the tip of her tongue, but she didn't say them. "Okay," she said. "Fine." Her tone gave her away.

The Doctor took his glasses off and studied Rose. "Are you angry with me?"

"No."

"Rose?"

"No. I know you had to help them, to help her."

"But?"

"What about me?" Rose asked. "You went off to help her, them, but you abandoned me."

"You knew how to get home," he argued.

"I don't care about getting home. You went off and left me," Rose's anger flooded out and suddenly she couldn't stop herself. "I thought traveling was the most important thing in your life, yet you chose to trap yourself in 18th century France. Because you had to save her."

"What choice did I have, Rose? If you really expected me say, 'oh well it was hundreds of years ago, stuff 'em, let them fend for themselves while I go off and have fun somewhere else', then you don't know me at all."

"Apparently."

"You want to go home?" His look was hard and unyielding.

"Every time we have an argument, that's your solution isn't it? Threaten to send me home."

"I'm not threatening, I'm asking. If you don't like my life and the decisions I make, do you want to go home?"

"No, I don't want to go home. I want you to include me in things like that. Don't just go off and leave me. I thought we were a team?"

The Doctor sighed and rubbed the back of head. "We are."

"Really, because it didn't feel like it today?"

"What do you want me to say. Next time I'm going to trap myself somewhere, I'll take you with me?"

"Yes."

"I can't do that. I can trap myself, I can put myself in danger, but not you, not if there's a chance to keep you safe."

_What if I'd rather be trapped with you?_ Rose wanted to ask, but she didn't. She knew there'd be no point. The whole time she'd known him he'd been the same. In Downing street he'd put off launching the missile because he could save the world and loose her. He'd promised her mum that he'd always try and keep her safe and would always try and send her home. Just as he had on the Game Station, just as he had when he'd shown her how to activate Emergency Programme One herself, just as he had earlier when he'd gone alone through the time window. So instead she said, "I know."

He nodded. "Good then. Go and find Mickey, don't want him wandering off and getting lost."

"You're not going to sit in here brooding all night are you?"

"Probably," he replied, but this time he did smile.

"Typical man," she said. "And I don't want to go home, not unless you're coming with me."

END


End file.
